The man in the sack suit whipped the hat off his head and pointed a finger at Chance. “Well?” he snapped. “We’ve been riding halfway across this godforsaken place looking for you and your captain, Sergeant.”
“I turned in my report yesterday, Colonel Thomas. Sent it with Lieutenant Henshaw.”
“Yes, you did, Sergeant. And I got it. I read it.” He spit. “The same as I read that telegram that was sent from Sanderson. Am I supposed to believe that a stalwart Ranger with such a long history of bringing law and order like Hector Savage turned renegade? And took most of his command with him? Am I suppose to believe that you’re the only honest Ranger there was in the entire E Company?”
“Not the only one.” Chance felt his anger boiling. “There was Lieutenant Wickes . . . Rangers Smith, Magruder. And Babbitt and Turpen.”
“Hec Savage served as a Ranger since the Rangers were organized. Before that he . . .” Thomas shook his head. “Two of his uncles were killed at the Alamo. I can’t believe this.”
The sheriff cleared his throat. “Well, Colonel, sir, there were witnesses in Murphyville. They saw Savage and some of his men taking that train. One man swore he saw Savage gun down the conductor in cold blood.”
“I just don’t believe it,” Thomas said again.
“Believe it,” Albavera said.
Thomas turned, and stared at the Ranger badge pinned on Albavera’s vest. “Who the hell are you, mister?” he snapped. “The Rangers have never, ever, had a nig—”
“I’d watch it, Colonel,” Grace Profit said.
Thomas turned, his face paling, shaking his head. He had started to sweat.
One of the officers, a white-haired lieutenant colonel with a well-groomed mustache, cleared his throat. “Well, there is one more thing. It’s . . . well, sir”—his eyes turned hopeful—“the gold?”
Smiling, Chance turned to the empty cot he had been sitting on, unbuckled the strap securing Savage’s leather bag, reached inside, and, grunting, pulled out the bar of bullion. The second officer, a captain with a pockmarked face, gasped as Chance placed the bar in his hands.
“There you go,” Chance said.
Eyes locked on him.
“Where’s the rest?” the white-haired officer asked.
Chance looked at him dumbly. He shot a worried glance at Albavera, who looked just as idiotic as Chance suddenly felt.
“Sir?” Chance asked weakly.
“That’s one bar,” the lieutenant colonel said.
The Ranger leader added, “Where are the other twenty-nine?”
“They’d be on the train,” Chance guessed.
“The one you wrecked?” the Army captain asked.
“Well, yeah. The one Mickey rammed.”
Silence.
Chance was also sweating. Thinking. When we left . . . the posse from Marathon and Sanderson was there. Lo Grande’s men were fleeing south. Savage had taken Grace, ridden south. He couldn’t have carried more than one bar, could he? Certainly not thirty.
He looked at Albavera.
Albavera stared at his boots.
“It had to be on that train,” Chance said.
“It wasn’t,” the white-haired officer said. “All of those safes were empty.”
Silence.
“Savage . . .” Chance shook his head. Impossible.
“The posse?” Albavera guessed. “Those men from Marathon, railroaders from Sanderson?”
Chance shook his head. “They didn’t know what was on board. But maybe they could have figured it out. Maybe . . .”
Suddenly, Grace Profit started giggling.
“What, madam,” Ranger Colonel Thomas roared, “do you find so amusing? By thunder, if you know where Captain Savage hid the rest of that bullion shipment, you had better tell me, and tell me now.”
Grace wiped the tears from her face with her bandaged hands. “No, Colonel Thomas, Captain Savage took only one bar when he fled after the train wreck. I’ll swear to that.”
“Then,” the sheriff asked mildly, “where’s the rest of the gold?”
Grace began giggling again.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Chance said, snapping his fingers. He looked at Albavera.
Both men said the name at the same time. “Don Melitón.”
“What?” Colonel Thomas dropped his hat on the floor. “Don Melitón Benton?”
“That’s absurd,” the sheriff said.
Grace laughed so much she thought she might wet herself.
“He was shot in the chest,” Chance said, looking at Albavera. “Said he was dying.”
“Said he was dying,” Albavera repeated.
“He was bleeding internally. He was spitting up blood.”
“Likely he bit his tongue.”
“He didn’t look so good when we left him in Texas.”
“He didn’t look so bad when he and his men saved our bacon in Mexico.”
The younger Army officer, still holding the bullion bar, said, “I’m lost in this conversation.”
Grace’s giggles erupted into a roar of laughter that spread across the hospital. Soon all of the soldiers lying in their sickbeds were cackling, though none of them knew why.
“The don wanted to avenge his son’s death,” Chance said above the ruction.
“A quarter of a million dollars can buy a better son. Especially considering that the one I killed was a little creep,” Albavera said.
“The man’s richer than God already.”
“‘Wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms.’”
“Don’t start sounding like that Shakespeare-quoting son of a bitch Lo Grande.”
They headed out of the hospital.
“Sergeant Chance,” Colonel Thomas wailed, “and you, the big nig—stop. Where in blazes are you going?”
“Meoqui,” Chance called back.
“Mexico,” Albavera added.
The door slammed behind them. Despite one arm in a cast, Chance easily swung into the saddle. “You’re not coming with me,” he told Albavera.
“The hell I’m not.” Albavera mounted his horse.
Colonel Thomas barged out of the hospital, stopped on the porch, and pointed his finger, but couldn’t find any words. He just stood there, trembling, silent.
Chance ripped off his Ranger badge. “This won’t do us any good in Mexico.” Looking at Albavera he said, “And it’s none of your affair.”
Albavera unpinned his own badge, and let it fall to the ground. “I’m coming with you, Sergeant Chance.”
“Why?”
“Because”—Albavera grinned—“I care.”
Chance let out an exasperated curse, swung his horse around, and kicked it into a trot. Albavera rode alongside him.
Inside the post hospital, Grace Profit kept laughing, and so did all the soldiers. The white-haired lieutenant colonel, the pockmarked captain, even the sheriff had joined in.
As they rode out of Fort Davis, Moses Albavera and Dave Chance had also started chuckling.
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West Texas Kill Page 27
